US debt ceiling crisis: John Boehner's leadership has been a failure. Perhaps it's time to quit

What the Hell was that all about? After days and days of shutdown, after banging on the debt ceiling, after 800,000 people were sent home without pay, after war memorials were barred and parks closed – what have the Republicans achieved? Some negligible tweaks to Obamacare. Oh, and now only about four people are prepared to admit to pollsters that they are Republican. The Grand Ole Party leveraged its reputation when it tried to use the shutdown to injure Obamacare. And it got almost nothing in return.

Actually, using the shutdown this way wasn't necessarily a bad idea. Obamacare is unpopular and likely to be a jobs-killing measure. The House was entitled to protest it and to use negotiations to try to stall its implementation – the tactic was constitutional, democratic and had the potential to put a break on Obama's reforming zeal (for perspective, read this angry account of how one man's premiums are set to double, and how he'll have to find the money or pay a penalty). But the game-play has been all wrong and the Republicans have failed to exploit their inbuilt advantages (ruthlessness, control of the purse strings and Obama's habit of buckling under pressure).

… the small band of 20 or so House conservatives who have been all but running the House since this fiasco began. They refused to support House Speaker John Boehner and even Budget Chairman Paul Ryan. Another 30 or so Members were tired of getting kicked around by Heritage Action and Senator Ted Cruz and want the whole thing settled. With Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi keeping her troops in line for a no vote, GOP leaders pulled the bill from the floor.

There you have it in a paragraph: the Democrats have shown consistent discipline and unity of purpose. The Republicans have been undone by factionalism. Things aren't much better in the Senate, where the GOP seems to be split between cranky old guys who don't like their party (McCain) and cranky young guys who don't like their party (Cruz).

What it all points towards is a philosophical "civil war" within the GOP, which is now being discussed avidly by the bloggers. The Congressional Republicans are almost all conservatives who want to reduce the size of government. But there are those who put a premium on being seen as capable of good government and then there are those who think government should be shrunk at almost any political cost. "Drown it in the bath tub" etc. As Ross Douthat points out, both sides have a good case to make. The Tea Party types might be behind an enormous short-term propaganda disaster for the GOP but they are the only ones with a long-term vision of how the Right should be branded: populist, anti-corporate, anti-government. That's surely the future, because the alternative is to be a cranky version of the Democrats.

Bringing both sides of the GOP together requires leadership, and John Boehner has failed to show it. The kind might say that JB couldn't take people with him who didn't want to follow – but that's his job. And he spectacularly failed to do it. The Republicans should ask him to reconsider his position.